Monday, 5 August 2019

Who Reviews Warrior's Gate by Matt Rabjohns




"Run Doctor! Scurry off back to your blue box. You're like all the rest: lizards when there's a man's work to be done. I'm sick of your kind. Faint-hearted, do-nothing, lily-livered deadweights. This is the end for all of you. I'm finally getting something done! Hahaha hahahahaaaaa!!!!"

John Nathan Turner and Christopher H Bidmead wished for Doctor Who to be taken into more "Real science" territory after what they considered a far too jokey period of the show which had been season 17. The did not completely remove the humour, but they did lance a huge amount of it out of their debut season together. They also drove the stories towards being more serious, which is a good thing. Its then somewhat just a little paradoxical that "Warrior's Gate" does actually possess the most humour of all the season 18 stories. But within this story the humour comes from the drama, rather than being grafted on.

"Warrior's Gate" is probably the most science-oriented story of the season. It can be actually a tad confusing if you're not concentrating fully. But if you are fully alert, then you will discover just how unique and interesting this story is.

Steve Gallagher is a very talented and gifted writer. Here he takes the themes of a contracting section E Space and runs with it and presents us with a very very stark and stand out story indeed. This is helped no end by the inventive and creative direction of Paul Joyce, although one understands that this story was not one with a smooth production at all. Paul Joyce was apparently far more of a visual filmic director, and had no idea of the manic schedule that was the usual Doctor Who story recording of the 80s. In fact, he was even sacked at one point by John Nathan Turner and some segments of the story are directed by Graeme Harper. That a superb story somehow manages to emerge from all this hassle is a definite credit to everyone involved in its making.

The Tharils are a particularly good and well realised race of aliens, that are given a good amount of background, yet still have a lot of mystery surrounding them. They are not out and out heroes, not totally black hearted individuals either. Their greyness is what makes them interesting. They are in no way shape or form the typical Doctor Who alien race. In fact, little of Warrior's Gate is typical Doctor Who. Jeremy Gittins appears as Lazlo too, long before his more memorable role as the Vicar in "Keeping Up Appearances". David Weston however is the most notable and present of the Tharil, and he is sublime in the role.

The casting on the story is also spot on. Kenneth Cope is a brilliant Packard, and any shadows of his Carry On Film appearances or the suchlike are totally absent from his performance here. He plays Packard real and straight-faced all the way through.

Clifford Rose is the man of the hour though. His Rorvik is delicious. He's thoroughly nasty through and through. He has no ounce of decency in him. He is totally self-centred and acidic and he really stands out as one of the more memorable Doctor Who baddies. Actually, his slightly bonkers laugh towards the end of the story is very weirdly unsettling. He is definitely in the ranks of the best.

The Gundan Robots are also another well-designed set of robots, with their voices being particularly effective. They look mean, tall and command attention.

Another striking aspect of the story is the extravagant visuals. It does help to make the story stand out, but not like a sore thumb, rather more like a proud and exuberant thumb! The visions of the Doctor in his gorgeous burgundy ensemble moving past black and white shots of gardens and castles is amazingly effective on screen and looks totally unique.

The only major gripe with this story is the horrifically rushed goodbye to Romana as a character. Honestly, I can’t help feeling that Lalla Ward deserved a far better exit. However, the Doctor crowning her as the "Noblest Romana of them all!" is a lovely farewell line to this popular and much-loved companion. However at least she gets a good cause to follow, in that she leaves to help Biroc free his people from the universe of E space, and K9 stays with her too to lend a probe. K9's exit was also bittersweet for a lot of younger fans who adored the metal mutt.

Perhaps another tiny gripe is that Matthew Waterhouse does get rather side-lined in this script, and doesn’t really justify his presence within the story really. But Matthew again is not half as bad as he is frequently portrayed as being, and he has some very amusing interactions with K9 all along through this story.  And he is already proving himself worthy as a reliable assistant, especially when he gets the Doctor out of trouble with Rorvik.

Another small but worthy note to mention is the guns in this story for once don’t look flimsy and stupid and unconvincing. They look to be made of real decent heavy metal so when Rorvik holds one to the Doctor's cheek you believe for once this gun could cause some real harm. The designers did well on this story to say the least.

So, the Doctor and Adric finally escape the confines of E Space and head back into the real universe of N Space. But the end of an era is approaching, and Warrior's Gate stands as a very original and different story to help make Tom Baker's last year very memorable and very entertaining indeed.



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